Blood of Azura

Part XIV

The force of her hand striking his face was loud and close but it barely penetrated his consciousness. It already felt as though his soul had been cleaved in half, his mind peeled like a ripe fruit, waiting to be eaten.

Where had he just gone?  Had she been with him? If felt as though she had been.  The look on her face offered no clues. 

'Remove yourself at once!' She hissed, her eyes embers, aflame.

Her little body pushed at him but he was too entranced to move. Her taste lingered on his tongue, sweet and familiar. What in the gods had possessed him to kiss her? He hadn't wanted to kiss her. He had watched her anger spiral and come loose and he had wanted to throw her on the pallet and take her roughly, that's what he'd wanted. He'd wanted to pierce her throat with his teeth and drink from her, he'd wanted to roar at her to cease her incessant disobedience - he hadn't wanted to kiss her.  But then he'd seen her tears - tears which seemed to have their own metallic scent - and overcome by a thick cloying burn in his chest, he'd kissed her. He'd kissed her because, right then, it had felt as necessary as breathing his next breath. There had been no other thought to it. No consideration of what it might mean or whether she would welcome it. He had simply needed to do it.

The first startling notion was that it felt as though it had not been the first time he had kissed her. A memory of it had flooded all of his senses at once. He'd experienced a deep longing for it, as though it had been lost to him for an eternity but he had somehow found it again. The second most startling notion was that she had returned it. He'd felt her mouth open to his, welcoming and hungry. Her blood had rushed to meet his tongue as he punctured her lip, and the taste was deeply and richly familiar to him. It had fused with his own, in a frenzied, desperate knitting together, and he knew that he would never forget the taste of her as long as he was alive to remember it.

She looked horrified as she stared up at him, but the scent of her fading desire hung between them in the air. The scent was much like her blood, only sweeter.

'Your body does not appear to be quite as outraged as your words suggest, female.'

Her cheeks flushed as her eyes narrowed. 'How dare you?!' When she spat again he turned his head this time so that it landed on his cheek. Then he turned back and took hold of her flailing wrists, pressing them down into the pallet by each side of her head. He lowered his mouth slowly until it almost touched hers once more. 

The fight seemed to leave her instantly, her eyes widening with fear or something else, her breath trapped at the back of her throat. The blood slipped from her mouth like the richest most fragrant of wine. His thirst deepened.

'Please...' she whispered, closing her eyes tightly. He felt her body begin to tremble beneath him, though from fright or desire he could not say. He could still smell her need, but the tears sprang again from her eyes and they had the same effect on his senses as they'd had before. He was about to release her when her eyes shot open wide. 'The collar,' she gasped, a thought lighting up her eyes.